TNT's 'The Great Escape' to Reality TV

TNT is plotting The Great Escape with producers Brian Grazer and Ron Howard. The cable network has shot an action-adventure competition reality pilot produced by Imagine TV and Fox TV Studios. The show, which has a MacGyver-flavor to it, puts ordinary people in extraordinary movie-like situations challenging them to escape using only their everyday skills, team work and what they can find around them. Justin W. Hochberg is executive producing along with Imagine TV’s Grazer, Howard and David Nevins. The pilot is in consideration for a series pickup at TNT.

The action-adventure reality genre is hot, with another top filmmaker, Michael Bay, recently teaming with the Magical Elves for One Way Out, which is being shopped to the networks. Hochberg has three other projects in the works, The Lost Weekend with Brett Ratner for the CW, Crushed for the Style network and Going Commando for Cartoon Network. TNT had a slow start in the unscripted area with its first reality series, the Mark Burnett/DreamWorks TV series Wedding Day last summer.